Present day electronic equipment utilizes a great number of IC packs (packaged integrated circuit chips). Typically the IC packs are plugged into sockets mounted on printed circuit boards. The IC's are often removed and reinserted for a number of reasons such as testing, program changes, etc. A typical dual-in-line IC pack contains 24 to 40 pins, each pin being approximately 15 mm. wide and 36 to 50 mm. long. The pins of these IC's are very fragile and may easily be bent or deformed during the IC removal or insertion process. Thus to remove or insert such an IC pack from or into a socket, a great deal of time consuming care must be taken to prevent pin damage.
A number of commercially available devices solve this problem by extracting or inserting the IC's in a controlled, uniform manner in order to minimize pin deformation. These devices, however, are generally large, complex, cumbersome, difficult to manufacture and thus expensive. Typical devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,172,317 and 4,215,468. Another disadvantage of commercially available devices is that each is designed to perform just one function, e.g. either extract or insert an IC but not perform both functions.